You`ve heard the age-old saying about what is most important in real estate:

Location, location, location.

Some locations are expensive (like the 53rd floor penthouse in Chicago where this picture was taken). Other locations are less expensive in financial terms, but might be more valuable to you individually.

You might not have thought about it, but the importance of “location, location, location” is far broader than in real estate values.

It is important in many areas of life, including the results you get in your work.

Think about your experience for a second.

Are there places you are happier? More productive? More focused?

Are there places you find yourself less stressed? Less bothered? Less distracted?

Of course there are!

This article isn`t about extolling the virtues of any one place in particular – in fact, the answers to the questions above would be different for different people. Instead, in a minute I will share four advantages you can gain from the places in which you find yourself.

It is your job to translate these ideas into something valuable for you. But before you get to the advantages, think about two or three of your very favorite places; get a crystal clear image of those places before you read on…

The Four Advantages

Location affects attitude. If you are on the beach, you are likely pretty happy. If you are stuck in the back of a plane sitting on a hot runaway, with sweaty people on both sides of you, you probably aren`t. While these may define extremes, the point is always accurate. Your environment can inspire you, make you full of awe, disgust you and much more. Recognition of the impact will help you consciously choose the places that encourage a more positive attitude. And whenever possibly, this recognition will help you choose a different attitude when you know your location isn`t going to inspire positive attitudes and emotions on its own.

Location changes perspective. When you go to a new place – whether it is a new office, a new restaurant, a new city or a new country – there are new perspectives and observations all around you. It might be easy to think about this example if you grew up in the downtown area of a large city and then find yourself on a secluded lake – the vast differences make new perspectives obvious. Those new perspectives are available in any location, however similar it is to your past experiences. You can create changes in perspective offered by location simply by looking for them.

Location enhances experiences. Every new place offers more than a new perspective; it offers a chance to add to your life experience. When you stop to drink in, absorb and truly observe the sights, sounds, smells and tastes around you you make your life more full, more vibrant. These rich experiences can help you immediately be more productive. And, the accumulation of these experiences allows you to be more productive, creative and successful throughout your life when you are really living and noticing them.

Location allows learning. You can always learn from location. If you find yourself in downtown Chicago sleeping somewhere near a busy fire station, there will be noises not often heard when living in a small town. What can you learn from that? A new location likely offers the chance to be around new people; people you can learn from individually or collectively. What will you learn from them? You may find yourself around animals or plants or other parts of nature with which you aren`t familiar. What can you learn from this? The key is always asking yourself, “what can I learn in this location or environment?” When you ask yourself that question you create intentional learning.

In all of these instances what you learn might be serendipitous (rather than planned), but the process of using location or environment as a conscious trigger for learning is extraordinarily powerful.

These four factors are real and impact you and your results regardless of the location in which you find yourself.

It is your responsibility and opportunity to maximize the advantage you take from these truths.

Leaders recognize the value of environment or place as a subtle yet important factor in the success of their teams and organizations. Leaders from around the world and from all different environments have made the Remarkable Leadership Learning System their choice for a learning environment. This one skill at a time, one month at a time approach to becoming a more confident and successful leader allows people to learn from other members and experts from a wide variety of fields and backgrounds. It’s all designed to help you become a more effective leader. $748.25 worth of leadership development materials including two complimentary months of that unique system are yours as part of Kevin Eikenberry’s Most Remarkable Free Leadership Gift Ever today at http://MostRemarkableFreeLeadershipGiftEver.com.

About the Author

Kevin is a bestselling author, speaker, trainer, consultant and the Chief Potential Officer of the Kevin Eikenberry Group (http://www.KevinEikenberry.com).

Don’t Just Give Orders; Be A Role Model and Demonstrator

by Michael D. Hume, M.S.

No doubt, managers have a lot to do. There’s planning the work flow, organizing schedules and materials, staffing projects and facilities, controlling operations, and much more. Leading – and especially providing inspirational leadership – can seem like a luxury item to some busy managers who don’t have enough hours in each day. But the fact is that good inspirational leadership can make managing an enterprise so much easier.

Frankly, I don’t know how some managers get by without developing inspirational leadership skills. I’ve worked with hundreds of managers in my role as coach and counselor, and I’m occasionally amazed by the manager who starts with an attitude of “administration” above “inspiration.” Some representative quotes from such folks:

“It’s not my job to motivate you. You get a paycheck, that should be motivation enough. Nobody has to motivate me, and nobody should have to motivate you.”

“I hire people who are qualified, based on the job experience and education on their resume. Qualified people should know what to do.”

“I paid a lot of dues to get where I am. Somebody wants to move up in this company, they gotta pay their own dues.”

If it isn’t already here, the time is swiftly coming when there will be no jobs for managers with this type of attitude. You can’t attract and retain exceptional people with managers like this. You can’t beat competitors. You can’t win the war for talent. Managers shouldn’t coddle employees, but if they want to have the sort of leadership brand that can inspire great things in business these days, they have to be willing to do what it takes to get the best out of their teams.

The most inspirational leaders know how to lead by example, but beyond that, they are excellent show-and-tell masters. They are well beyond simply not letting their employees see them doing the wrong things… they take the time and initiative to show folks how to do the right things. They don’t just give orders and advice, they also give demonstrations and training. They don’t wait to be asked for directions; they’re willing to jump in with examples.

Years ago, as a professional actor, I worked with many different directors and choreographers, each with his or her own distinctive style. But you could really tell the difference between the “manager” types, who sat in the audience seats and made pronouncements, and the “leader” types, who spent their rehearsal time up on stage with you. “You’re doing this,” the typical leader-type might say, “and it should be more this, this, and this.” She could demonstrate the staging; he could do the dance routine. I think directors who were former actors themselves were more likely to have this demonstrative style, while the more academically-oriented directors were more administrative. Both types could come up with great show concepts and plans, but my own experience was that the demonstrative directors got a lot more out of the actors than their more intellectual colleagues.

There was some of the same type of snobbiness, too, that you find in business managers sometimes. “This is not a theater school, it’s a professional house, and I’m not looking for actors who need to be taught,” one such director told the cast of one of my shows. Fine, I thought. But I (and my most talented colleagues) tended to seek out productions directed by other, more “hands on” directors. In fairness, some actors responded well to the academic approach (mostly the ones who had the same type of background themselves), and there were some directors who would demonstrate to the point of micro-managing the actor’s performance – and that’s no fun, either. But the best directors were the ones who could demonstrate anything, at any time, and were wisely savvy in knowing how and when to play show-and-tell. They made their interventions feel helpful and fun, not like one-upmanship.

Such directors were a delight to work for. Their demonstrations and encouragements made me feel like I could do great things. Somehow the best directors made me excited to be able to deliver as excellent a performance as I could – to look forward to the lights going up at curtain time, to having a chance to bring the audience something special each evening. “Wait’ll they see this,” I often found myself thinking before an entrance. “They’re gonna LOVE it!”

It was inspiring.

Maybe you own a business, or maybe you’re just trying to get more out of your staff during these tough times. Either way, think about how you can be more of a show-and-tell inspirational leader. Take a lesson from the theater world. Imagine not that you’re running a sales team, or managing an office, or supervising a shop floor… imagine that you’re directing a great theatrical event, that your staff is comprised of the world’s most talented performers, and that all they need is a little demonstration now and then from you, the Maestro, to help them perfect their craft.

About the Author

Michael Hume is a speaker, writer, and consultant specializing in helping people enjoy health, wealth, and inspiring lives. Those who want to make money “one less thing to worry about” can learn more at http://tinyurl.com/myownbiznow – anyone wanting more vitality can browse http://shop.enivausa.com/239824 – visit Michael’s web site at http://michaelhume.net

If you have been trying to make money online, you have no doubt wondered why some people seem to have massive success while others struggle and barely make a dime.

Is there a secret the big boys know that you are not privy too?
Maybe you are inundated with e-mail offers for the latest product that will make you six figures in a month or drive hundreds of thousands of eager visitors to your website. The secret does not lie here.

Of course developing a massive e-mail list of eager subscribers can be classed as a secret to success online. As so often is mentioned – the money is in the list.

But I am looking deeper.

If you want to tell the difference between a successful Internet marketer and somebody struggling to get off the ground, you have to examine the difference between their mindset.

Successful Internet marketers are warriors. They have chosen to be successful and they have honed their awareness so that they focus and visualize their goals as though they have them in hand. This mindset helps them battle through the difficulties and failures they experience in working online to eventually win out.

This is not fluffy self-help stuff. If you want to be successful online, you have to become a tough yet peaceful warrior who fights hard every day to achieve your goals.

You have to take action and you have to follow the right course of action. It’s no good battling on if you are battling in the wrong direction.

Yet underneath this massive action, you have to believe you can reach your goals. There is no room for doubt. You have to believe. You have to ignore the naysayers. You have to be relentless in your pursuit of what you know deep down is possible.

Now all this is easier said than done. If you are like me, you wake up in a bit of a haze in the morning. The burden of all the work ahead can seem depressing at times. However, I make a conscious effort to relax, close my eyes and focus on my goals, throwing aside doubt, believing in success, believing that I am already successful.
You can choose to be successful. You can throw away the negativity and believe you are on the path to success.

This takes effort. You have to gain control of your thoughts and be conscious when negativity sneaks in.

One of the main affiliate programs I am involved in has a daily wake-up call and webinars stressing the right mindset and putting members in the mood for success. Their take on this is you have to read up and listen to people who can inspire you. You have to breathe in success. You have to hear how others have struggled against the odds and how you can do the same.

This has to be a conscious effort day by day by day. This is not for slackers. This is not for whiners. This is for the warrior, the peaceful warrior who knows they can find success and the freedom they desire for themselves and their family. It doesn’t come easy.

You have to be sincere. You have to believe. And you would be advised to look into this in more depth and really practice it and make it a habit.

The secret is in your hands.

About the Author

Julian Gearing is an Internet marketer, journalist and media expert. His main affiliate program stresses the importance of mindset, belief and becoming a warrior. Check it out here – http://effective-marketing-online.net

Germany’s trump card during times of economic expansion – foreign exports – has proven its major liability during the global recession, framing a comparably dispassionate attitude about business growth prospects in the early part of 2010. Unemployment remains high in Germany, and employed executives are motivated to consider a career change only if the new employer can guarantee better job security than one’s existing employer.

There is, however, an opportunity for German companies to strengthen their organisations by attracting the cream of the crop from a deep and available pool of management talent. “Companies that have done their homework in good times can now aggressively try to win new executive talent from weaker competitors,” says Ulrich Ackermann, Managing Director, executive search firm TRANSEARCH Germany.

In Germany and its German-speaking neighbors, Switzerland and Austria, there have been steady strides made in the assessment of leadership potential and succession planning. “The number of diversity candidates has grown rapidly, especially on the female and international side,” says Ackermann. “This has enabled many corporations to grow their market shares internationally. I do foresee that this trend will be stronger for the years to come.”

The prospects for business growth in Germany in 2010 have most managers’ eyes focused squarely on performance in the third and fourth quarters of the New Year. The German economy, because of its continued reliance on the strength of its exporting market, will continue to watch as the global economy moves beyond the troubling specter of recession and closer to the resumption of business as usual. But it is essential that German employers not lose sight of the difficulties they have been forced to experience for more than the past year, and the tough lessons they have learned during that period.

“It is of paramount importance that investments in new technologies and new products be strengthened to constantly position the German-speaking markets – which are labor cost intensive markets – so they can maintain their technological leadership for years to come,” Ackermann says.

This article is an extract of the White Paper entitled ‘EMEA Leadership Outlook – Looking Ahead With Measured Optimism’. Get your copy of the full White Paper via the Transearch International website at http://www.transearch.com/press-room/article?article_id=467. Given their unique viewpoints on the way forward, distinguished executive search consultants from a number of TRANSEARCH International offices across the EMEA region contribute their unique market insight and client engagement expertise.

About the Author

Executive search firm TRANSEARCH International has representation in most of the major economic centres of the world with 59 offices in 37 countries. TRANSEARCH International was founded in 1982 and is a leading international executive search firm. German Leadership Outlook – Maintaining a Competitive Edge

It is the rare human being who can maintain confidence 100% of the time. Even the best of leaders experience dips in confidence from time to time, from context to context and from situation to situation.

The key is building your ‘confidence’ muscles.

I believe confidence can be cross-contextual. By that I mean having success in one area of life can be used as a reference point from which we can borrow confidence while we build it in that new area of our personal or professional life. And yet, that confidence transfer will only provide limited levels of confidence unless there are specific reference points within that context.

To raise the bar on your confidence as a leader I’d like you to offer three concepts to focus on that can provide a roadmap for creating higher levels of confidence in whatever endeavor you are embarking on, and especially in your role as a leader:

Certainty – Certainty is defined as the state of being free from doubt or reservation, destined, sure to happen, inevitable, bound to come. Certainty is how confidence is projected by leaders and it’s a skill that also has to be developed along with confidence. Certainty comes from experience and through developing your beliefs and values about yourself, your role as a leader, the world, your organization, the marketplace, etc. One of the key skills to nurture to develop your level of certainty is perspicacity or a keenness of mental perception and discernment, which helps in decision-making and problem solving.
Certainty can also be a double-edged sword as some leaders are too strong in their ‘certainty’ muscle and are shut down to outside ideas or perspectives. Thus a healthy balance of certainty and an open mind is important for leaders to develop.

Clarity – Many years ago I attended a workshop by Anthony Robbins and one of the most powerful things he said that day I’ll never forget. His message was “clarity is power.” I’ve learned over the years that is a very true statement. Without clarity its tough to see where you are going and a leader without clarity is not much of a leader.

There are many contexts in which a leader needs clarity. And that thought alone can be overwhelming. That is why I want to start by having you focus on four key areas to build your confidence and certainty as a leader:

• Your Leadership “Identity” – this is how you want to show up and be viewed as a leader
• Your Strengths – these are the things you do best and that you enjoy doing
• Your Areas for Growth and Development – these are the things you’d like to invest time, energy and resources in to improve and that you can improve in a reasonable period of time.
• Your Team Strengths and Talents – these are the things that your team members do well, that you don’t want to do and that you are more than happy to delegate to others because they like to do them and do them best.
Capability/Competence – This is defined as having power and ability, being efficient and competent. And, there are six fundamental areas leaders need to not just be capable, but must master:
• Visionary thinking – developing an inspiring vision that motivates others
• Decision-making – how to make both simple and complex decisions, and how to decide whether to make decisions on your own or get input from others
• Problem-solving – understanding the difference between a decision and a problem, how to solve problems on your own and help others solve problems…
• Influencing communication skills – for managing performance and behavior issues
Delegation – how to get more things done by developing your people
• Emotional Mastery – how to become a master of your emotions so you can gain greater respect from those you lead and raise the level of your own competence in the other five areas…

If you’d like to learn more about how the “3 C’s” of Certainty, Clarity and Capability creates confident leaders, you can attend my free Tele-Seminar on March 10th and March 14th – “The Secret Formula of Confident Leaders: How to Become a Leader Others Enthusiastically Want to Follow” Register online at the SecretsOfConfidentLeaders.com website.

About the Author

Skip Weisman (Weisman Success Resources, Inc.) is known as the “Creator of Champion Leaders and Champion Organizations”, helping organizations create motivating work environments that deliver high-performance results. Download free white paper reports: “The Employee Motivation Equation,” “The 3 Strategies of Champion Organizations,” and the “The 7 Deadliest Sins of Leadership and Workplace Communication” from http://www.SkipWeisman.com

Planning falls under the critical factor of Growth. Planning also falls under the discipline of Strategy. So planning is about getting your strategy in place and then developing a path for growth in line with your strategy.

You have most likely heard the sayings “Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail” or “Most People Aim at Nothing and Hit it with Amazing Accuracy”.

Planning can be a time consuming exercise, one which I cannot do justice in this Article. We can however set you off on the right track or just refocus your mind if you already have a good planning process in place for your business.

It’s best to start by understanding the process of planning. Planning really is about working out WHERE your business is right NOW, and WHERE you want or need your business to GO in the FUTURE.

Devise a plan from NOW to the FUTURE, and then working out a plan on HOW TO get there.

Think out about where you would like your business to be in 3 years time, 5 years or beyond!.

What size will it be? What profits will you be making? What hours will you be working? What will the business be worth? And what role will you play?

These are just some the questions you should be asking yourself? Continually thinking about where your business will GO in the FUTURE?

You should also consider issues such as your market, will it be the same in 3 years time, is it growing or shrinking and will you have more or less competitors do deal with? What impact will your competitors have on your margins in years to come?

I recommend that you take a few hours out this week to just sit back and think about your businesses future. Thinking time is often neglected and the importance under valued.

Enjoy!

Andrew

About the Author

Andrew has been helping people and small businesses get a head start to developing a business online and from home. His key focus is on leveraging time and resources! Check out http://easybusiness-success.com

So why is it important to have a trusting workplace? And how do you know if you have one?

Studies show that a trusting workplace increases employees’ level of happiness, work effort, productivity, and engagement. It also provides an environment that encourages open communication and promotes people to share their ideas. When people feel comfortable sharing their ideas, there is a greater capacity for innovation within an organization keeping a company current and relevant in the marketplace.

Evaluating the level of trust in your workplace

Below are eight factors that studies have shown influence trust in the workplace:

OPENESS: Do you as a leader display having an open mind? As a leader, when you show others around you that you are open to new ideas and encourage others to share their opposing opinions not only do you create an environment of trust but you are enabling innovation within the organization.

VISION AND VALUES: Are both vision and values communicated and lived on a consistent basis? Without a vision for your company and a set of values, your employees will not have a sense of direction. When they understand where the company is headed and it will you get to there, they trust decisions that are being made in the organization because they understand them. The key is to make decisions consistent to your values. It isn’t enough to put values down on paper; they need to be demonstrated throughout the entire organization.

COURAGE: Do company leaders have the courage to do the right thing even if the decision or action could put them at risk? It takes courage to stay the course when obstacles get in the way of your vision. Leaders often take the easy way out when faced with difficult challenges. Those who are able to make the tough decisions which support the company’s values, build trust and respect amongst their team members. They do the right thing even if in the short term it impacts them in a negative way.

SHARED GOALS: Do employees understand how their individual goals impact the organization’s goals? Goals that are shared build stronger and more committed teams. And when the goals are clearly linked back to the company’s vision, you are strengthening the understanding of your company’s journey and how you will get there.

COMMUNITY: Does your organization promote giving back to its community? Community service projects build relationships amongst employees and are viewed as not self-serving by employees. And, when employees are involved with the decision process of what projects the company should be involved with, they feel important and you show them that you value their opinions and ideas.

INTEGRITY- Do leaders keep their promise and commitments to employees? Do they tell the truth to them? When leaders are transparent and share information honestly, employees trust what is being told them. Promise and commitments are not just those that are made to individuals but to the organization as well. So what are those promises and commitments you make to an organization as a leader? They are things like stewardship of company resources including finances and human resources. They watch over the finances by making sound decisions and develop their employees’ talent to the best of their ability.

MANNERS: Are employees recognized for good work and thanked for their hard efforts? Companies whose leaders consistently thank, praise, and reward employees for their good efforts demonstrate good manners and increase the level of trust employees have in the company and their leaders.

CARE: Do employees feel like leadership cares about them? Companies with leaders who make all employees feel important and part of the team create a feeling of safety. They actively listen, are visible and accessible, and take an interest in people’s personal lives. Employees feel genuinely cared for by their employer.

If you really want to get understand how your employees rate workplace trust, develop an employee feedback survey to determine what areas you and your organization need to improve on to increase the level of trust. The sooner you identify the areas of needed improvement, the sooner you can put a plan of action into place to increase your employees’ productivity, engagement, and level of happiness.

About the Author

Beth Armknecht Miller, of Atlanta, Georgia, is Founder and President of Executive Velocity, a leadership development coaching firm accelerating the leadership success of CEOs and business leaders. She is also Chair to two Vistage groups. She is certified in Myers Briggs and Hogan leadership assessment tools and is a Certified Managerial Coach by Kennesaw State University.
Visit Website: http://www.executive-velocity.com and our blog at http://executivevelocityblog.com

It’s really a shame that people in management positions have no clear understanding of what it means to lead. All most of these managers know is that they are “in charge” and they get paid more money for being so.

In fact, there are thousands of books written on how to be a leader as well as numerous leadership seminars held year after year. This is all done in the name of teaching leadership skills but the real reason is to make the authors and seminar gurus rich. There ARE definite right and wrong ways to approach leadership. If you are employing any of the following methods, you are doing things the wrong way.

1.To begin with, your position or title doesn’t equal leadership. While it may be true that you’re the President, CEO or head of a department, this doesn’t meant that you possess any true leadership abilities. There are many people running companies or organizations currently who have no idea how to go about leading.

2.Being with a company forever does not equal effective leadership. Even if you have been with your company for 30 years, it doesn’t mean you’re a good leader. In fact, if you’re in a leadership position, it may have just been luck or being in the right place at the right time.

3.If you think you must be willing to do anything that your employees are asked to do, please think again. They need a leader who can be trusted and respected, not a floater employee.

4.Leadership is made from respect, trust, and confidence earned, not from education. So, while education is needed to run a company, it is not needed to lead people.

5.If you believe that you can study your way to good leadership, think again. All the books in the world will not help unless you have the right attitude for leadership.

6.It’s not true that you must be a senior citizen to be a good leader. Many excellent leaders are in their 20′s.

7.You don’t have to be in charge of something or someone in order to be leader. It’s not a position. It’s an attitude.

8.You can display leadership abilities even if you’re the only one working in your area.

Take these to heart and you will find that you have a much better chance of becoming an effective leader no matter what your profession happens to be.

About the Author

Mark McCool spent most of the late 90′s in the web design, Internet marketing, and Internet promotion business

When business people talk about certain ideas and opinions related to leadership development, there is one common thought that these people share with each other and that is that the leader must be able to produce the company’s desired results. The fact of the matter is that some people posses other leadership qualities like integrity and how to command respect from subordinates and employees, but the real question is can that person produce the desired results of the company? If you are an aspiring leader of the company that you are employed in, you have to consider all the ideas on how to produce concrete results for the company that you work for. One thing for sure is that you will have to apply the most important leadership development ideal of all.

Motivation is the key. You may be familiar with stories of people who diligently pursue their desire to achieve results for the company that they are working for but only to lose pace with their goals towards the very end. Worse is that this scenario is something that you may have experienced before. The funny thing is that there are some of the motivational speakers always make mention on the ways that you will have to motivate yourself as part of your leadership development program but then they just rant of a most complicated way of achieving leadership development. The thing is this is one approach that has a failure capacity of about ninety-percent. The thing in question here is the method of teaching leadership development and not those who are practicing these complicated programs that are almost sure to fail.

Now here is the real deal on why these programs fail is actually related to why some leaders actually fail to produce results – they just give up! And there is no other reason why.

About the Author

Miguel de Jesus, author of this article is also interested in business coaching and recommends you to please check out effective leadership in business if you liked reading this information.

While preparing for a speaking engagement for a group of senior executives, I was briefly distracted by a worrying thought: what if this audience of high-achieving, hard-working, successful leaders doesn’t care about work-life balance? What if they think the topic is irrelevant, unimportant and even counter-productive to what they believe has made them successful? What if, after my first introductory words and PowerPoint slide, they scoff at the concept of work-life balance and its importance to all workers?**
Fortunately, I paused and reflected on many of my clients’ work-life balance challenges and successes. Then my worrying thought changed to a bit of a roar: Bring the Naysayers On!

More Naysayers

Why else might some say work-life balance is irrelevant? Here are just a few possible quips:

â• ¢ ‘With the economy in its less-than-ideal state and many people concerned about job security, I should be happy to have a job and work as long and as hard as needed. Work-life balance goes out the door when you’re lucky enough to have work to do.’

â• ¢ ‘As an entrepreneur, I need to work all of the time in order to keep my business going. My business success is completely dependent on how long and hard I work. There is always more work to be done and I need to do it.’

â• ¢ ‘I’m looking for a job so I don’t have any ‘work’ in my work-life balance. I need to focus all of my waking hours on my job search.’

â• ¢ ‘Work-life balance isn’t relevant to me as I’m a stay-at-home parent. My life and my work is the same.’
For each of the above statements, and just about any excuse that can be made against creating a better work-life balance, I argue that it matters to everyone.

Leaders

Whether you manage one person, or lead an organization with thousands of employees, supporting your staff to create a better work-life balance makes sense and cents. When people you work with feel you respect their work-life balance and allow them some autonomy in their choices, they will feel more valued, more engaged, and more committed to the organization. This does not mean just organization-wide policies. You can make a difference in your employees work-life balance by giving them support and tools to make choices that fit with each person’s individual work-life preferences. Keeping your staff satisfied keeps them working well and working for you.
I would also encourage you, as leaders and managers, to examine whether your actions are supportive or in opposition to your work-life balance philosophy shown at work. If you encourage your team to set boundaries between work time and downtime and then send emails at 2am, what message are you really sending?

Entrepreneurs

As an entrepreneur you may really need to ‘do it all.’ The question is can and must you ‘do it all’ now? There will always more to do ‘ more clients to connect with, more services to provide, more products to develop, more marketing, more, more, more. For most people, the feeling of being on a treadmill 24/7 does not enable you to be at your most effective, creative or productive. Downtime away from your business, even for short time spans, will allow you to rejuvenate, rest, and relax in order for you to be at your best. Pay attention to times of the day when you work best, and use that time and your heightened energy and effectiveness to its fullest. Carve out chunks of time away from the business to explore, expand and escape.

Job Seekers

During the job search, you are the product that you are selling to a potential employer. The job interview is the sales call where you need to put the best version of your product in front of the customer. If that product is exhausted, scattered, overwhelmed or disheartened, you are unlikely to ‘close the deal’ and receive a job offer. For most, a job search, especially when it is over an extended period of time, can be emotionally and physically draining. For job seekers, the challenges include: constant evaluation against others, receiving negative responses from potential employers (or none at all), needing to be ‘on’ and high energy when networking, and questioning your competence and employability.
Work-life balance comes into play as you decide how much energy and focus to place on your job search activities. I advise clients that an effective job search is a full-time job. And, with full-time jobs, you need non-work time, too. Make sure you are taking time out of the job search to continue to develop yourself in your profession, engage in enjoyable and/or meaningful non-work activities and surround yourself with supportive friends, family and colleagues. A balanced job candidate makes a more effective and attractive job candidate.

Stay-at-Home Parents

Work-life balance isn’t just for those who have jobs that pay. Stay-at-home parents have full-time jobs that can take up all of their waking (and at times, sleeping) hours. And, like entrepreneurs, there is always more to do. What often gets lost in the overwhelm of parenting, housekeeping, cooking, volunteering, and all of the other day-to-day tasks are self-care, adult friendships, non-family hobbies, and staying in touch with past professional interests. For the stay-at-home parent, it is often assumed by others that there is an ability to always take on another errand, project or to-do item. Add sleep deprivation to the mix and it can be challenging to keep up with all there is to do and to be the type of parent, partner and community member you wish to be.

Work-life balance issues for stay-at-home parents include: the need to create boundaries to say ‘no’ to less important requests so you can say ‘yes’ to your priorities, awareness of what is important outside of your traditional parenting/home responsibilities, time for self-care; and space to evaluate and plan for if/when you decide to return to more traditional employment.

Everyone

Regardless of your professional situation, work-life balance matters ‘ if we want to create highly functioning work teams, successful companies with talented employees, viable and lucrative entrepreneurial ventures, effective job searches with high-caliber candidates, and nurturing families. Work-life balance is not just about how much time is spent on work activities and non-work activities- it’s about creating a work-life and a non-work life that works together based on the your own preferences, goals, values and vision for your whole life. Who doesn’t need that?!
I would love to hear your thoughts to why work-life balance does matter to you!

**Fortunately, my concerns were not realized. The group was very engaged in the topic of work-life balance, examining their priorities and looking for opportunities to create boundaries to protect those priorities.
Would you like to use our articles in your newsletter, blog, or website? Permission granted to forward or reprint, as long as the following copyright and signature information is included:

© 2010 Julie Cohen, http://www.JulieCohenCoaching.com

Julie Cohen, PCC, is a career coach. She helps her clients clarify and achieve their professional and personal goals including greater career satisfaction, work-life balance, leadership development and personal growth. Julie is also the author of Your Work, Your Lifeâ• ¦ Your Way: 7 Keys to Work-Life Balance. For questions, comments or to discuss this article, Julie can be reached by visiting http://www.juliecohencoaching.com.

About the Author

Julie Cohen, PCC, is a Career Coach, Speaker and the Author of Your Work, Your Life…Your Way: 7 Keys to Work-Life Balance. She helps her clients and audiences achieve greater career and work-life satisfaction. For more information on Julie’s book, coaching and speaking services, visit http://www.7KeysToWorkLifeBalance.com/book. To join the 7 Keys Community and participate in work-life balance discussions, become a fan at: http://www.facebook.com/7keys